


the luckiest guy in all the galaxy

by possessedradios



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Please let Jacobi get therapy once he's back on Earth?, Takes place during episode 55: A Place For Everything, The Thing between Lovelace and Jacobi almost feels like friendship although I know it isn't., What is this fandom doing to me i’m not used to writing so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-11 23:32:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12946392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possessedradios/pseuds/possessedradios
Summary: Waiting for what the Bad Guys call "processing" is stressful. Talking to someone - even if that person might technically be an enemy - helps at little bit. Plus, team "Even Jacobi has standards" and getting increasingly better at speaking without thinking.





	the luckiest guy in all the galaxy

**Author's Note:**

> It's past 1:30 am and I have school tomorrow, I won't proofread this or try to come up with a better title because I might spontaneously decide I actually hate this thing otherwise. I spent half my evening writing this, I don't want to delete everything just because I'm sleep-deprived.

Jacobi throws the makeshift pick and tension wrench to the floor and flinches a little when the two tools actually hit the ground with an awfully loud sound. He’s gotten more used to zero gravity than he would have thought possible. “Damn this to hell,” he mumbles and moves away from the door to sit down next to Lovelace again. 

She sighs. “Well. Wouldn’t have brought us far anyway. Probably.”

“Yeah, heard you the first time you said it, thanks a bunch.” He’d regret the words after only a second if he’d still be capable of caring. Lovelace is being unreasonably nice, and even he can see that he has no right to snap at her like that. “... Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Her voice is calm. Much calmer than seems appropriate. He wonders why. Is that just the way she is? Is that what the past months’ - God, years’ - events made her into? He tries to remember the content of her personnel file but fails miserably. It’s a blurry mess of _all of their_ files. He laughs under his breath, because _that’s_ what’s making him feel bad, even if only a little, and if that’s not hilarious, then nothing is.

Lovelace looks at him for a few long, long seconds, but she stays silent.

Minutes pass without either of them saying a word. The Sol is eerily quiet in comparison to the smashed together Hephaestus-slash-Urania. Almost no cracking, creaking, hissing. He almost misses the sounds.

It’s Lovelace who breaks the silence in the end, hesitantly. “So. You’re…”

“I’m - what?”

“Gay.”

He snorts again. Leave it to him to come out because the whole situation has him in the state of more-mess-than-human. He cares less about her knowing than he thought he might. Honestly, so what if she knows a thing or two about his private life. It’s not as if it seems to matter much anymore. He shrugs. “Yup.”

“Huh,” she makes, and then: “And none of these guys out there are your type? God, Jacobi, how picky can you get?”

This time, he downright laughs, and it almost feels good. Suddenly he’s pretty sure that she was good at her job, at being the commanding officer for her mission. There’s something about her that makes things feel lighter. “Yeah, y’know. Never quite got the whole zombie hype.”

She smiles at him, weakly, but sincerely. “What is your type, then?”

“Hm?” He looks at her for a moment, then averts his eyes, shrugs. “Dunno. ‘m not even sure I have a type.”

Jacobi can hear her raised eyebrow without looking. “Really now. What about trigger-happy control freaks who like whiskey more than human beings?”

“... That’s … direct.” He stares down at the floor, notices that he’s very, very tense and wills himself to relax his shoulders and his jaw. Thinks about Kepler, picking him and Maxwell for missions again and again, thinks about Kepler, picking him for _this_ mission, thinks about the words of praise and the warm feeling in his chest, thinks about the sound of fireworks, thinks about the faint smell of chemicals and the countless colors in the dark-dark-dark night sky- He snaps his mouth shut when he realizes, suddenly, that he’s shaking slightly and that his teeth are clattering a tiny bit, even though the whole tension feels as if it’s happening more internally than anything else now.

Lovelace’s hand on his shoulder, she’s putting it there slowly, gives him time to protest or to shy away, but he doesn’t, the pressure and warmth and confirmation of his existence is nice. “Sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have-”

He shakes his head. Takes a deep breath. “Nah. It’s fine. And …” A split second of hesitation, a split second for which he hates himself and doesn’t know why. “... no. No. People who get my best friend killed are … not my type.” New realizations every day. Come to space, figure out what you’re into. There’s a PR slogan for you, Goddard.

“But he used to be?”

“... Why do you want to know so badly?”

Lovelace shrugs. “Might have a bet going on with Eiffel,” she says, and then adds quickly, when he stares at her in disbelief, “Look, we had to occupy ourselves _somehow_ while not planning mutinies, and Eiffel’s _really_ invested in other people’s love life!”

A second passes, then another, and that does it - Jacobi bursts into laughter, and he can’t stop for what feels like minutes, and he doesn’t care at all about the fact that it starts to sound a little hysterical. 

Lovelace is smiling again when he finally manages to look at her without laughing. “Yeah. Used to be into him. I guess,” he says and finds himself smiling back, but it must look ridiculously pathetic, because she gets serious.

“You okay?”

He shakes his head and answers honestly without thinking about it. “Nope! But that’s fine. It’s really nothing new. I have no idea what ‘fine’ is even supposed to feel like.” That does nothing to make her look less worried, so he adds, “I mean it. I’m serious. It’s fine. I’m … used to it.” His voice is steady again, and free of sarcasm.

Lovelace nods slowly.

“... Who won?”

“Eiffel. I was team ‘Even Jacobi has standards’.”

“Geez. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Eh. I should have known.”

They smile at each other again, and God, this is so surreal it’s almost reassuring.

Minutes pass again. Half an hour. An hour. At least he thinks so. It’s hard, keeping track of time, especially when waiting for something the New Big Bads call _processing_. After a while, he can’t stand the silence anymore, and he can’t think of a single stupid joke, can’t think of anything to say, really, so he just speaks without thinking, which seems to be something he gets increasingly better at, “Klein. He used to be my type, too. I mean. I fucked that one up, but that was … good. While it lasted. For a while, at least.”

“Klein?” she asks, and then he sees the dawning realization, sees her remembering. “One of the-”

“One of the zombies. Yeah. Weird, seeing him like that. Used to be pretty alive. Like, with his own thoughts like ‘Jacobi, you’re being an asshole’. I kinda preferred that, I think.”

Beat.

“God. Fuck, Jacobi, I’m sorry.” She sounds genuinely upset.

He nods a little, then shrugs. “You get weirdly used to seeing kinda-dead people. … I- I sometimes hear her voice. Ala- Maxwell’s. It’s … it’s weird. I don’t know whether I like it. It’s … comforting, but also … weird. Just … weird. … I must sound crazy.”

“... No.” Lovelace exhales slowly. “No. I used to hear Sam all the time. Talking to me. I had whole conversations with him.” She laughs, but it sounds a little shaky.

“Sam?”

“Ah. He hated when I called him that. Lambert. My second in command. Back from _my_ Hephaestus mission. Selb- Hilbert killed him. … Also tried to save him.”

Beat.

“This is all … pretty fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Jacobi agrees. “It is. It really is. All of it. I mean … I thought this would be just another mission. Thought we’d get back and … continue to live our lives.”

“Mmhmm. … I remember how happy I was when Young told me I had this job. Could have kissed her. And now look where we are. Look at this goddamn _mess_.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. … Hey. Jacobi. I’m- I’m sorry about Maxwell.”

He tries to shrug, or nod, or react to her words _somehow_ , but all that comes out of his mouth after a few seconds is, “Why are you like this?”, spoken without thinking about it first again.

“Like what?”

“... You’re being … nice. I’m- I’m not a good person, you know. I don’t _deserve_ this.”

“Yeah. I noticed.” Her voice is dry, matter-of-factly.

“So. Why?”

She shrugs. “Honestly? No idea. But it’s … nice to have company. And I’m glad it’s you and not Kepler.”

“Yeah. … I almost feel sorry for him. I’m rather here than stuck with Cutter and his zombie minions. … Almost. … … He- He-” Jacobi trails off.

It’s as if she’s reading his mind. “ _Jacobi has shown exemplary skill and dedication throughout the_ , yeah. That was … unexpected.”

“I hate him for that. He’s- He’s not supposed to have a heart. Or emotions. Or act like he does.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Jacobi feels a little like crying and decides it’s not worth the effort, and what hurts the most is not the messy mixture of emotions, but the fact that the whole dedication from earlier is gone.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

He looks at her. Maybe she _is_ reading his mind. At this point, he wouldn’t be surprised.

“No need to lie to me, y’know. I’m not stupid.” … Although it’s tempting, to give in to hope, to believe her for just a few seconds. It would be nice to just feel _okay_ for a while, for only a minute, half a minute. Would be nice to have all the hurt and sadness and grief and anger and whatever else is there unidentified go away. Just for a second.

“I mean it,” she says. “We’ll figure something out. Always have, up until now.”

The door opens before Jacobi gets a chance to answer, and Riemann stares down at both of them. “Mr. Jacobi.” His voice is calm and collected. “Dr. Pryce and Mr. Cutter are now ready for you.”

“I can’t believe my luck,” he mumbles, but he gets up and walks over, and the homemade gravity feels wrong, and Riemann smiles at him as if he really was the luckiest guy in all the galaxy.

Just … for a second. It would be nice.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is @possessed-radios and my podcast sideblog is @shortwaveattentionspan, hit me up once I've gotten some sleep; I'm very good at yelling about the estimated therapy costs of all the characters.


End file.
